


stripped (to the bone)

by Astrarian



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Post-Blood and Wine (The Witcher 3 DLC), Witcher Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:09:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24882853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Astrarian/pseuds/Astrarian
Summary: Ciri felt none of the shame, rage or sorrow she knew they expected. It was the lack that made them look away.
Relationships: Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia
Comments: 1
Kudos: 19





	stripped (to the bone)

The air was laden with the scent of grapes and flowers and spilt red wine. Inappropriately bright afternoon sunshine slanted across Corvo Bianco’s courtyard.

Once, Ciri would have basked in these things. A minute before, she had raged at them. Now, she stood at the entrance of the cellar, both hands fisted, one around a witcher medallion. At the base of the stairs at her back, beneath barrels she had destroyed in a violent wave of emotion, the latest batch of Est Est wine soaked into the ground.

Though her body trembled from her recent physical exertion, her eyes did not as she met every gaze staring her way until they all withered. She felt none of the shame, rage or sorrow she knew they expected. It was the lack that made them look away.

The final gaze she met belonged to Barnabas-Basil. “Ciri,” he said, “housekeeping is the last thing Yennefer needs at this time.”

“Isn’t housekeeping what you’re for at all times?” she said flatly.

It seemed whatever standards the majordomo held himself to didn’t permit him to react to such a question. That suited Ciri as much as any other response would have. She left the cellar and headed up to the house, lifting her closed fists to block the sunshine. She ignored the wine that trickled over her wrist and down her arm.

The light was always low within Corvo Bianco, as though time stopped inside and it was forever the homely, long-awaited evening that followed a tiring contract. No doubt that atmosphere had been Geralt and Yennefer’s aim.

Geralt’s swords and the armour sets that he’d held in the highest regard surrounded Ciri. Though the displayed items were far from ordinary, she could picture every monster Geralt had slain. It was more than a mere display of weaponry. It was testimony to a life spent on the Path, for those few who knew what that meant.

After years of her own spent on the Path, Ciri had thought herself one of those few. Even away from the Path, it remained with her. She knew all the ways to wield these swords—Geralt had taught her. When fighting she still heard his instructions in her mind: footwork, pirouette, strike. She wondered if Geralt had remembered Vesemir when fighting.

She would never know.

As she looked at the blades, she heard Geralt’s voice in her head all over again, from a memory she still bitterly regretted. A memory she’d never wanted to keep.

“No witcher ever died in his own bed.”

Geralt had said that himself. He had always known it to be true. But somewhere along the Path, she had let herself believe that he would be the first.

The silver swords gleamed as she moved through the room, lights flashing off the swords like sparks from Vesemir’s funeral pyre flickering and dying on the wind.

She had been mistaken to think of herself as a true witcher who understood life on the Path. The Path wasn’t only life, but death too.

Her gaze took in the final addition to Geralt’s collection: grandmaster armour of the School of the Wolf. She remembered him telling her how he’d trekked through half of Toussaint for those damn diagrams. He’d been appalled all over again when he revealed the obscene crafting cost to her. She remembered a gentle smile warming his face as he let her cajole him into donning the armour and going a few rounds with her not three days prior.

All that the set was missing was a wolven witcher medallion around the neck, and a witcher to wear it. None had Geralt’s form to inherit it. Especially not Ciri.

Her fist was still clasped around Geralt’s medallion. She opened her fingers, and then closed them again so that the medallion’s dark silver eyes couldn’t look back at her. She looked back at the wolven armour, her grip tightening around the medallion.

She knew what it was to be a witcher now. No witcher died in his own bed. And it wasn’t mutagens that stripped witchers of emotion. It was loss.

“Ciri?” Yennefer asked, coming out of the bedroom behind her. “Ciri?”

She turned away from the empty armour. “Yes, Yen?”

Yennefer’s bloodshot eyes roved over Ciri and stopped short at her hands. She gasped. “You’re bleeding!”

As Ciri opened her fingers the points of the medallion slid from the holes they’d punctured in her skin. Bright red blood oozed from the open wounds, seeping over the dark red wine that already stained her palm.

“Fucking hell!” Yennefer hissed. She took Ciri’s hand in her own and muttered a word of Elder speech.

The wounds should have hurt. The healing magic should have tingled. Yennefer’s touch should have been warm.

Ciri didn't feel a thing.


End file.
